Thursday, March 31st 2022
It’s 6:30 a.m., t minus 3 hours until my exit for town. I’m in the kitchen right now and I’ve just finished a spectacular breakfast. Why spectacular? Well, it had red lentils and corn porridge, a super energy concoction, some noodles and forest mushrooms and for spices, a super spicy peanut sauce that I made in a blender in about 2 minutes. Also adding to the spectacularness is this new stove. I used it yesterday incorrectly and today used the correct burners to do my coffee and the big pot and wow, so fast, so clean and everything came out perfect.
I am sitting right now in the afterglow and sipping coffee and thinking about my day. Yesterday I think I reached a limit on my manual labor. I could blame the cooking oil for some of the fatigue but nevertheless, it was a lot of work done. My roads in the garden are a little bit deeper than originally planned because my bachi gata is just a wild man. It’s about a kilogram of steel and I have extended the handle and it just digs so well. It is a perfect instrument for me because I don’t want to use my legs on a spade. And as far as that’s concerned, it is infinitely better for digging up gardens than any Spade. About equal to a horse really.
So my roads are a little deeper than planned and then I did an initial fluffing up of the first of our lavender/squash gardens. I think it took about 10 minutes to go around once and you could immediately see that it looked as if it had been plowed by a horse. Brilliant.
But heavy. It is not a light instrument to play with and it takes some time to get used to. This is one of those instruments that ends up either with back problems and ripped ligaments or you look like Arnold Schwarzenegger I guess. It’s a lot to play with but it works and you really sleep well at night after using it.
Or maybe it is the food.
When I was a young man, like many Americans, I tried to find some way to extend my personal abilities. Life in America is difficult and everybody is constantly pushing and striving to be more.
Nothing has changed by the way and this morning, I noticed that Major League baseball is inventing this showcase for home run hitting and spectacular catches to bring to Europe. They used words like pushing it to the next level and generating excitement. I put the advertisement in the trash. I’m getting very, very tired of the noise.
When I was in these moods, the thing I would usually choose would be some form of deprivation. Here in the Slavic world, people like to do this for you. This self-deprivation thing, I guess it’s from Christianity, is understood as a motivation to do more. So, because they believe that their job is to influence each other instead of worrying about themselves, people actively deprive you of things you need. In their mind, they are doing a good and righteous thing. Jesus apparently was into suffering.
But back in the days of theoretical freedom, I would do this for myself. I quit drinking. I quit television. I would occasionally quit meat and go for vegetarianism.
My veganism currently is not self-deprivation. It is heart health and being good to myself. I consider it even an indulgence or a benefit to deprive myself of things that ruin my health.
Sometimes the deprivation would work. Sometimes, a little fasting is probably healthy for you. Missing a meal now and then can be beneficial. So can increasing your physical exercise or calorie burning. Sometimes taking the alcohol away is an extreme positive and for short-term goals, I guess sometimes a sip or two is not a bad thing.
I don’t drink alcohol and I don’t want to, though it’s on my mind right now. When I was younger and I played billiards I noticed one day that if I played completely sober, I was an average player. One beer made no difference, two beers had me a tournament player and three beers ruined my game completely. Try keeping that chemistry going during a tournament sometime.
What I’m saying though is it might be a good thing for some people and certainly that would agree with Russian culture, fuck them to hell forever.
Right now what I’m really thinking is letting bread go for a while and letting the internet go. And so far as this writing is concerned, I don’t think I’m going to stop until I’m done this year. And as far as checking out the story with the war or communicating with friends, I’m glad to have the instrument. But what I think I’m going to stop is using the internet to amuse myself. I am noticing that I am getting sick of the noise.
I remember talking about this a lot last year when I was writing about ecology. Okay, I’m still writing about ecology but technically this is about food. But I started speaking about noise pollution as well as air and water and land pollution. I guess I’ve written a lot about the effects of noise pollution and how bad it is for not only our ears but also our mentality. It is disturbing and it breaks your concentration and it makes it difficult to think. I guess that’s why it is such a good drug for people who believe that working means turning on an instrument that makes a lot of noise. It stops them from thinking and is therefore pleasurable to them despite the pollution to everyone else.
I’ve done this too from time to time. Trying to watch baseball games last year was an ordeal because of the commercials, which are invariably louder than the regular broadcast, and the incessant Yammer of the announcers. I found that by allowing the picture to be but to turn off all the sound, watching baseball became mildly pleasurable again. I would not say that the changing camera angles was anything but confusing. When you go to a game, you watch the game from wherever it is you sit but the constant moving direction also is extremely distracting and plays with your head.
Maybe this is the reason I really want to move away from extraneous internet use. It is a distraction that I’m getting tired of. I am getting tired of being distracted. I am tired of distraction.
Maybe this is the root of all evil in our world. We are so full of ourselves and we all live as if we are kings and queens walking the Earth because we have at our disposal so much mental stimulation without having to use even one of our muscles to get it except for a finger twitch. We are spoiled to death.
That former teacher who came with the gas company to bring my new stove mentioned this. This is a universal complaint from the teaching profession and especially those who are perhaps over 40. Children are absolutely ruthless now. Every one of them is a lawyer, you are not allowed to use any sense of discipline on them and yet they refuse to use even one of their muscles to do the work of learning the program. For him, it was better to deliver gas stoves.
If we look at this from the perspective of actual content creators, you can feel from them the pressure to be bigger and greater and more exciting. We have to give more and more and more and we have to do something exciting to break through the absolute tonnage of competition that is everywhere.
But the result of that is crazy. Will Smith, as full of himself as any human could be, feel free to walk on the stage in the Oscars and physically assault a comedian for making a joke on tv. Literally, doing his job. Quite literally actually, doing his job of making fun of celebrities by doing movie jokes. Chris Rock should sue him for 200 million dollars truthfully and he’d probably get it.
This moment however is bigger than all of the wars on the planet. It shares space with Donald Trump getting a hole in one while playing golf. And of course takes the place of any global concern about the environment or the pollution problem or the economic problem or the health problem that’s coming from eating all of this shit food. Of the pandemic, of all of the pandemics and all of the global diseases that come from the way we live.
You can’t talk to anybody anymore. You can’t simply have a conversation with anybody. They can’t hear you and they won’t hear you. They are physically deaf from the extensive noise pollution and they are psychologically deaf because you’re speaking to them requires muscle movement beyond the twitch of a finger and this to them is rude.
Why is Russia bombing the living shit out of Ukraine? He is a king walking the Earth and he needs to be louder than all the other noise ever made. He is, and I’m talking about Putin now, just another person living in the same world. He might be more physically protected and have more super elite soldiers standing around with automatic weapons to protect his health, a few elite doctors and nurses and $5,000 a night hookers ready to keep him calm, but he’s just a guy. He probably checks his iPhone just like the rest of us. He probably chills with videos, just like the rest of us. Well, he probably flips his phone while getting blowjobs and sitting next to a Tony Montana mountain of cocaine, but basically it’s the same.
Maybe what I want more than anything is to turn off the noise. Maybe what I really want is to turn up the volume on nature. Maybe what I want is to give myself a rest from sensory overload. Stop the war, stop the machines, stop the money and stop the noise.
There is snow on the ground this morning. This is a good thing. Snow is water and any water is good. Last night, I felt that it was a bit cold. I sleep with a hat on because I don’t live in town and when I noticed it was off and my head was cold, I knew that the temperature had dropped below zero. Right now it seems that anything above zero is shirt sleeve weather and anything below zero is cold. I guess the metric system is better.
And standing in my doorway and not speaking or making noise, there is the light sound of a freight train far away in the distance, one neighbor driving to work in their car just passed my door, and birds. There are a lot of birds these days and it’s very nice to listen to them talk.
I get a lot of noise and drama from people in town about my lack of living there. I guess they counted me as some kind of a celebrity. I’m tired of talking about that noise but let’s say it’s true. They are disappointed that I have left them. I doubt you could get anybody to explain the actual relationship except that they feel some kind of separation anxiety. I must have been a symbol of something. A public pet. Their own Coco the gorilla. But what I notice about these trips to town is that it’s a lot of physical effort to get down there, a lot of physical effort to be there, a huge amount of effort to be kind and nice and reasonable, a huge amount of discomfort adapting to living in a concrete box with artificial heating and all of that talking and cleverness and snappy retorting. And then I finally get home and I notice how wound up I am and how unnecessary being wound up is. When I get home and it’s quiet, I can physically feel the tension binding me up.
Really, maybe we should all consider just stopping the noise for a change. Maybe we should all consider adopting some new dietary habits and spending habits and personal habits. Maybe we should all think really hard about how much excitement we really want. Maybe we should stop feeling our days looking for ways to get off and look for a better way to spend our time.
Maybe being a vegan really means not having any reason whatsoever to chase the dragon.
***
I don’t normally speak in such a flowery or archaic manner. I suppose there was a time when the word was the only popular entertainment and writers were asked to separate themselves from The herd at least intellectually by the use of an enhanced vocabulary. This being said, what I am saying now while looking at the end of the world apparently as a result of the Industrial Revolution seems very similar to the words written at the beginning. All the same complaints seem to exist and I can definitely identify with the sentiments here.
***
Have you ever ridden a bicycle in a snowstorm? I have. And I’m about to do it again right now.
***
It’s about 3:20 and I am in my ex partner’s apartment. I am pretty tired. If nothing here ever goes as easy as planned, today was an exemplary example.
No, we don’t need this much drama. For this town, we could just say that everything was normal.
To start with, I changed this down and put on a new seat myself in the hour or so before I had to leave. It’s about 7 km of the service road to get to the train station. Maybe five or six on the service road and then there’s a small single track for maybe two. It’s not that big of a deal nor should it be and usually, giving myself a half hour is plenty to get to the train on time.
This however is not true in planting season. In planting season, the absolutely ruined topsoil of the State farms blows twofold over the road and creates a sand pit worthy of the greatest beaches of Europe.
When my alarm went off heading out the door, I had 48 minutes from my door to the train station to make the train. 48 minutes to ride 7 km.
I will agree that I wasted a few minutes trying to get the lock on my gate. It was snowing and my hands were cold and it was difficult handling all of the individual pieces. But I got it done and let’s say it took 8 minutes to get on the bike. 40 minutes to go 7 km.
I made it to the end of the service road as the train passed me by. 5 km in 40 minutes. And I was exhausted.
I could blame how difficult it was on the new setup. My stock and reach had both changed. The seat angle was different and how I related to the handlebars was different. I will agree to that. I made the bike slower simply to take stress off the front wheel so that I could go through sand a little better. But the gear has been too big to ride locally. The ground is just too soft and the gearing at 48/16, which have been perfect for super Slinky Wheels and 28 mm tires, is just too hard to push my old 36 spoke wheels and Street slick 26s.
In town is not so bad. But if I was in town, I would much prefer my race wheels. Those are faster, easier and more fun to ride. I don’t live in town however and this was the reason for buying a new 19 rear car. I needed to lighten things up. This was the reason for shortening my reach and changing my stack. I just wanted a bike that can easily handle Sandy roads.
For the first moments when I realized that I was not riding the train, I went through all of the possibilities of what I could do. I can call the cab company and explain to them where I was and they would come get me within 20 minutes. That would have cost a few rules and a little bit of ego, but it would have gotten me to town. My second thought was to go home and call the cab from there. This would save a few rules and I guess I would say face for not calling after a failed ride.
It didn’t work out that way. Firstly, I didn’t realize how tired I was. That was a seriously brutal 40 minutes. It took a lot of work and a lot of power to turn my crags through the wet sand and when I took the wrong turn going back, I ended up walking back to the service road and having to start again. When I spun out again in the soft sand, I changed my plan.
I would have to wait 2 hours for the next train. The temperature was slightly below zero. It was snowing and by the time I made it to the platform, I would not be moving around anymore. I did that anyway.
Long story short, I made the 12:00 train and made it into town. I chose to go directly to get the new gear which I had to pick up from a delivery service at a local supermarket first. If I wanted to go see my friend Zhenya to put a new chain on, when you change your drive train cogs, it’s a good idea to change the chain.
So, no lunch with my ex partner.
But it was good to see Vika and Zhenya. There was nobody there so there wasn’t so much waiting around. There was also not so much covid. I did the work of taking the wheel off, and Zhen gave me a very serious half inch chain and I had a new bike.
After this, I went to the supermarket for some cheap nuts and pasta, I made one other stop along the way that was not at all successful and then I made my way here. A nice fresh loaf of bread was on the table, that and a couple of peanuts was a quick refresher. I got to clean up a little bit and now here I am moaning about my day.
I don’t really have any other commentary. Nothing terrible happened to me other than being really tired. No unnecessary attention was paid by anybody and the only negative spot was when I crashed by mis-riding a ditch trying to make a light. No pain, nothing broken, just a little eager damage and that’s it.
So that’s it from Pinsk. I wish I had more to say but I don’t.
***
Zelinsky is in Belgium. His speech is finally in the Ukrainian language. I don’t think you need to translate it to understand it. I don’t think you need to translate to understand that the world understands him.
Now, if we could just do something practical to help out. Perhaps quit driving and boycott the oil business. That might not only save Ukraine, but stop similar aggressions in the world as well.
No leader of any country can change the situation. Only people, taking responsibility for themselves, their actions and the stewardship of our planet can stop these atrocities from ever happening again. Maybe this should be the last oil war in the history of humankind.
***
It’s about 10 minutes after 9:00 and I guess I’m going to close it up for the day. I am still in town, a bit on the disappointed side but very, very tired.
I understand that I am doing everything I’m doing by my own choice. No one is sponsoring this and nobody is putting a gun to my head either.
Perhaps there was some coercion involved in the original decision making to move to the country. Truthfully, I was going a bit crazy in town. When you write a lot, you become pretty sensitive to things. It’s about practicing your observances and the combination of observing things and vocalizing them tends to enhance your experience of life. You see more deeply into situations and you understand more of what you see.
I don’t want to become a rose but I think there’s a very logical reason why quite a few writers end up taking their own lives. Jack London voiced this the most sincerely in the last words of Martin Eden. And then he knew no more. It was the knowing that became the biggest burden. It was seeing the folly of man or even if that’s too kind, the horror of the species to the point that it was just not tolerable anymore.
I’m sure some people thought that I was going crazy but noticing that the cut of the building I was living in was funneling Auto fumes into my apartment made it almost impossible for me to live there. There is a YouTuber who dives deeply into Beatles records and explains the slightest nuance in the record and adds the catchphrase “remember, once you see this, you can’t unsee it”. Quite a devilish thing really when you start to see.
I guess I have become a bit notorious for turning down invitations. This is true for a lot of different types of invitations from simple conversations to working together. People don’t understand why I just get up and go home when the show is over. The after party is what people were waiting for and when I refuse that, they become upset.
I really wish they wouldn’t. I really wish they would understand that they don’t really want me looking at them. They don’t want my observance.
When I was teaching English, I had a horrible habit of understanding what had happened since the last time I had seen a student at a glance. Some students like that and others don’t. You could call it kind of a Sherlock Holmes thing. I’m just very observant and I have a long memory and to me, well, sometimes it’s just elementary.
Like I said, I really wish people would understand that they don’t really want me to pay attention to them. They really might not like seeing on my face my reaction to what I see on theirs.
I had some really nice dreams today. I don’t know what brought this on. Maybe it was my mood or maybe it was the easier bicycle gear. Maybe I had just reached the limit of my physical abilities and I had an opportunity to rest. Or maybe it was some chemical thing inside of me from a really good breakfast. I don’t know what caused this. Maybe I even caught a cold sitting and waiting for the train and these hallucinations were a part of my body dealing with whatever was going on.
I was dreaming about what life would be like if the world suddenly decided to listen to me. I was dreaming of my neighbors opening their hearts and coming to me and trying to make amends. I was dreaming of people wanting to get involved in some of my social planning. Truthfully, I dreamed that there was movement to legalize marijuana and somebody asked me to participate in doing something in our town. That part of the dream spread out over the entire country and I saw us as suddenly being an absolute Paradise right in the middle of the world. The line to get in would be so long that they could jack up the cost of the Visa and demand a medical card before coming in.
I dreamed of my village becoming a functional hole instead of random loser chaos. I dreamed of an Awakening of ecology and of all the people I know who dwell in misery and depression suddenly finding pleasure in a fresh breath of air or the taste of some nice piece of fruit. I dreamed that there was optimism that each day might be interesting and that we would be actually happy to see each other, not because one of us was a potential savior, but because we were all functioning well and happy to know that everyone was healthy and helping.
I dreamed of my ex partner and her neighbor as being completely different people than who they are. I dreamed of a conversation that doesn’t exist. I dreamed of choices that never get made. I dreamed of a moment that simply cannot happen.
I dreamed of communication with the medical community. I dreamed that public health became a matter of discussion and not some economic edict for Minsk or even Moscow. I dreamed that the doctors were curious and open and interested in holistic health and public safety. I dreamed that everyone was interested in these questions.
I don’t know if people even dream anymore. I mean, you can’t help thinking about things. But I’m sure most people just Chase positive thoughts out of their head. They don’t like thinking things that aren’t going to happen. It makes them feel foolish and takes away from their feelings of adulthood. Only children and fools have dreams. Adults have pain, I guess, or truthfully, I doubt people really finish the thought.
Or maybe all of this dreaming came because I had some paranoid thoughts this week. Usually they came at night. They had to do with the war or with the police or with someone getting tired of me once and for all. Paranoid thoughts about powerful people making decisions without consulting me. This is not just paranoia, I have had in my life plenty of people making decisions without consulting me. Sons of bitches. You never really get used to it and unfortunately, that they don’t care to hear what you have to say before acting is not only disrespectful, but it makes me very, very angry.
So possibly all of this dreaming that went on today, and really it was very pleasurable, might have just been a slap back from all the negativity I’ve been going through. And for what it’s worth, I didn’t act on my paranoid thoughts. I have never been one to back down from a challenge. I have lived through and sometimes fought through some very difficult and genuine situations in my life. When the chips are down, I like getting the ball. I trust me with the ball when things get rough.
But it really was nice to dream of a world that was not what this world is. It was amazing suddenly to be experiencing the kind of pictures that most people would just brush off. It’s kind of similar to the word Utopia. Last year, I wrote a bunch of utopian fiction but when I tried to show it to people or even talk about the ideas, they wouldn’t even allow the thought into their head. In fact, even if I used the word Utopia, it would be enough to make them smile and start explaining to me how the world is. Everybody always thinks they’re so smart to be able to explain the world exactly as it is.
Well, you don’t need me to explain how things are right now. Maybe that’s why nobody listens to me. For years now I have been trying to make my contribution but because my thoughts always lead to positive functionality, people don’t like it. I guess Utopia is not depressing enough.
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